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BULLETIN 



OF THE 



Newport Historical Society 

Number Eleven NEWPORT, R. I. January, 1914 



The Old State House at Newport. 

A PAPER BY 

Prof. WILLIAM McDONALD 

OF BROWN UNIVERSITY 

At the Dedication of the Tablet to Mark this Historic Building, 
June 11, 1913. 

Read at the Rooms of the Newport Historical Society, Touro Street. 



It is, I think, as true of a youthful country like ours as it is of the 
more venerable countries of the old world, that public buildings epito- 
mise and illustrate the history of the communities in which they stand. 
In the initial decision to build, the choice of a site, the determination of 
plan and exterior, the provision for payment, and the uses to which the 
building is put, each historic structure of a public sort represents a stage, 
or a series of stages, in the social development of a town, or a city, or a 
state, or the nation. This building whose historic significance we com- 
memorate today by a tablet which the State, in wise regard for its past, 
provides, typifies in many ways for more than a century and a half the 
public life of Rhode Island, and to a considerable extent, also, the public 
life of Newport ; and the fact that within its walls today the law is in- 
terpreted and applied rather than enacted, only emphasized the contin- 
uity of its public use through these more than five generations. 

Until 1690, twenty-seven years after the charter of Rhode Island 
was granted, the General Assembly of the colony seems to have no fixed 
abiding place. In 1676, for example, it met at the house of Capt. Rich- 



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ard Morris, and thereafter was debtor to other gentlemen for the hospi- 
tality of a home. At a meeting of the assembly on May 7, 169U, how- 
ever, it was voted to finish at once the town house in Newport, payment 
for the same to be made out of money and wool then in the treasurer's 
hands. The work dragged, apparently, for on March 27, 1709, it was 
again voted to pay ;^100 to finish the house. If any part of that sum 
remained unused, it was to go to the building committee for their labor 
and pains, at the rate of £^ per man. This first Colony House was 
built of wood, and was used jointly by the Assembly and Town Council. 
From 1694 to 1715 it was also used for religious services, but the Assem- 
bly finally objected, and the services were discontinued. 

By 1738 the Assembly had outgrown its meagre quarters, and it was 
voted to build a new Colony House. The old building was sold at 
auction and removed to Prison Lane, where it was converted into a 
dwelling, the bell being transferred to the Colony House at Providence. 
The vote of the Assembly, passed at the February session at Warwick, 
directed " that a new Colony House be built and made of brick, at New- 
port where the old one now stands, consisting of eighty feet in length 
and forty in breadth and thirty feet studd, the length thereof to stand 
near or quite north and south." A building committee, composed of 
Peter Bours, Esbon Sanford, George Goulding and George Wanton was 
appointed to oversee the removal of the old building and the erection of 
the new. An appropriation of £1000 was made, to be accounted for to 
the governor, John Chipman, William Ellery and Joseph Whipple. On 
certificate from this auditing committee that the account had been duly 
rendered, additional sums of £1000 each might be drawn from time to 
time until the work was finished. 

It is not surprising to find that there was controversy about the 
position of the building on the lot. Whichever way the building faced, 
many would wish that it faced the other. In May, 1739, it was voted 
to repeal so much of the act as directed the length of the building to 
run north and south, and instead to lay the length east and west. How- 
ever satisfactory this new arrangement might be to the assembly, which 
met occasionally, it clearly was not satisfactory to the people of Newport, 
who could hardly avoid seeing the structure every day in the year ; and 
on the 10th of July a petition from sundry inhabitants of the town was 
presented, setting forth diplomatically that the new Colony House 
would look more commodious if its length ran north and south. The 
Assembly accordingly once more reversed its action, and decreed a loca- 
tion north and south, at the same time making belated provision for a 
cellar. Whether a cellar was a luxurious afterthought, or whether it 
was believed that, with the cellar once excavated, the building itself was 
less likely to be moved, does not appear ; but we hear no more of the 
controversy. 






The honor of designing the building has been claimed for Peter 
Harrison, the architect of the Redwood Library building. In the Rhode 
Island Colonial Records (V. 71), however, is a request from Elizabeth 
Munday, for the allowance of an account of her late husband against the 
colony for " advice and attendance respecting the building of the Colony 
House and for drawing a plan of the same." In 1743 the Assembly 
passed an act for the payment of this claim. 

Between the time of the sale of the old Colony House and the comple- 
tion of the new one, the Assembly was again without a home. In May, 
1740, it met at the house of Thomas Potter. In 1743, however, the 
walls of the building were up, and, save for the changes in its surround- 
ings, the building was revealed about as it is seen today ; standing on a 
high foundation oi freestone, with walls of brick, and freestone facings 
and window-caps, doors on the north, the south and the west, ap- 
proached by long flights of steps, and the roof surmounted by a cupola 
with a bell. The letters cut into some of the stories have given rise to 
considerable speculation, and have been variously interpreted. Mrs. 
Van Renssellaer, the author of " Newport ; our Social Capital," ven- 
tures the opinion that they may be masonic marks, while others have 
seen in them the initials of prominent men of the colony. 

The building was apparently designed for other uses than those in- 
cident to the sessions of the General Assembly, and was in fact long 
used for a variety of public purposes. The large hall on the main floor 
served for military drill and town meetings. In one of the rooms above, 
the courts held their sessions. There need be no surprise, therefore, 
at finding the building referred to sometimes as the court house, som e 
times as the town house, and sometimes as the colony house. The halls 
of the Senate and House of Representatives (the latter used also as a 
court room) were on the second floor, the room of the Representatives 
opening upon a balcony on the front of the building, from whence the 
sherifl" made proclamation of the election of governors and other officials. 
The Representatives' hall was commodious and well lighted, but the 
Senate chamber was small and dark : hardly a worthy place for Gilbert 
Stuart's painting of Washington, a companion to the one painted for the 
Providence Colony House. 

Channing, in his ** Early Recollections of Newport," states that in 
the room of the House of Representatives there was no raised chair or 
rostrum for the speaker, but only a long table in the center of the hall. 
Instead, moreover, of having a sufiicient number of chairs for distin. 
guished visitors, or for the honorable Senate when the two bodies sat in 
joint session. Senators were compelled to stand in their places until their 
accustomed seats were transferred from the Senate chamber by atten- 
dants. When the joint session was over, the Senators again stood while 
their chairs were returned. 



The same writer is authority for a story which serves to show that 
the pomp and ceremony of gubernatorial inaugurations did not preclude, 
on occasion, irreverent personal allusions. The story is to the effect 
that one John Richards, a deputy sheriff, announcing from the balcony 
the election of a governor who was an acknowledged Bon Vivant, varied 
the time-honored formula by adding, after " God save the State of Rhode 
Island," the words, " for the year ensuing." 

Apparently the cellar was for some time not needed for colony pur- 
poses, for we find that in 1760 it was rented for a year for £180, presum- 
ably a depreciated paper valuation. How long this practice continued 
I do not know. It cost £61 14s. that year for sweeping and cleaning, 
and 6s. more the next year, including, however, the purchase of brooms. 
Whether or not the building was kept clean I do not venture to say : I 
only record the fact that the appropriations were made, and it is safe to 
say that the money was spent. 

As the largest public hall in the town, the State House was in de- 
mand for public receptions and similar functions. A list of the dis- 
tinguished people who have been entertained within its walls would 
include, probably, a large proportion of people of note who visited New. 
port during its earher days. In Rhode Island, at least, sectarian severity 
put no restraint upon social delights, and could the walls of the old 
State House speak, they would recall to us many a brilliant gathering 
and many a famous name. Religious services of various kinds, too 
were held there, for the early objection of the Assembly to the use of 
the first Colony House for such purposes seems not to have carried over 
to the new. During the time when the French, under Count de Rocham- 
beau, occupied Newport and used the building as a hospital, masses for 
the sick and dying were frequently said in the basement. The congre- 
gation of the present Emmanuel Church used the State House for a time 
as a place of worship, and Masonic meetings were also occasionally held. 

With ample accommodations within for the work of the courts, the 
location of the building accorded well with the publicity which, in early 
days, attended the infliction of punishment tor crimes and misdemean- 
ors. Many a thief was whipped at the cart's tail over a route which led 
from the State House through Spring street and back by Thames street, 
to the terror of evil-doers and the edification of the godly-minded. In 
front of the building might sometimes be seen the pillory, moved with 
its luckless occupant, to a difi'erent point of the compass every fifteen 
minutes, that all the town might see. 

Official records, contemporary narratives, and treasured story and 
tradition hold for the searcher many an incident, grave or gay, solemn 
or spectacular, temporary or epoch-making, in which this old building 
had a part. Such was the memorable election day in 1756, when a 



military parade attended the governor to the State House. In 1761 
the death of George II and the accession of George III was proclaimed 
from the balcony, the assembled people little dreaming that the cere- 
mony, typifying that regard for monarchy which to Englishmen was 
grounded in the remotest past, was being performed for the last time in 
Rhode Island, or that when the long reign of George III should have 
run one-fourth of its course, the colony would have become an inde- 
pendent commonwealth. 

In 1766 a public meeting at the State House celebrated the repeal 
of the Stamp Act, the provisions of which the town of Newport had 
effectually nullified. Three years later, the merchants of Newport 
formed here a non-intercourse agreement against Gt. Britain, to con- 
tinue so long as the duties on paper imposed by the Townsend revenue 
act remained in force. In January, 1773, the commission appointed to 
detect the persons responsible for the burning of the Gaspee sat at the 
State House daily, except Sundays, for three weeks ; and a year later 
a public meeting at the same place planned resistance to the East India 
Co. in the importation of tea. Then, on July 20, 1776, came the read- 
ing by Major John Handy, from the steps, of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, which Stephen Hopkins and William Ellery presently signed 
on behalf of Rhode Island. 

As with University Hall at Providence, so with the State House at 
Newport, the Revolutionary War brought changes and injuries. Both 
buildings were used as hospitals, the former by the French, the latter 
by both French and British. The British use of the State House began 
in 1779, and was not restrained within either medical or surgical limits. 
General Prescott, who took up his residence in the Banister house, 
looked upon the south flight of steps and pronounced them good, and 
presently removed them, making out of them, with the aid of similar 
stones from private houses, a spacious sidewalk. After the evacuation 
of Newport by the British, the stones were reclaimed and again put in 
place. The building itself suffered hard usage, and was left in such 
condition that in 1780 the town had to use the Friends' Meeting House 
as a place of business and assembly. Nevertheless, the building was 
illuminated in honor of the arrival of the French, and thirteen " grand 
rockets" were fired from the parade ground. The French also appear 
to have used the building as a hospital, but for how long or to what 
extent I do not know. 

Preparations for the repair of the building were begun sometime 
before the war was over, and while the rooms must still, apparently, 
have been used for military purposes. In May, 1 80, the Assembly 
voted that " whereas the State House and Gaol in the County of New- 
port are in a ruinous condition and must soon be rendered useless unless 



they are repaired — It is therefore voted that William Davis, Esquire, 
Sheriff of said County, cause such repairs to be made on said State 
House as may prevent it from further ruin." It would seem either that 
Sheriff Davis found the task greater than was expected, or else that 
military exigencies still predominated, for in the following March the 
Assembly resolved that " whereas the State House was used as a barrack 
by the enemy during the time they were in possession of the Island of 
Rhode Island, whereby the same was so much injured that this Assem- 
bly nor courts of Law can be accommodated therein, unless large sums 
of money be expended in repair thereof — It is therefore voted that the 
Sheriff of Newport, under the direction of the present Deputies, cause 
such a number of benches to be placed in the Synagogue as will accom- 
modate the Assembly — and that he purchase two tables and twelve 
chairs for the use aforesaid. 

By some means or other, however, the building was made available 
for civil and social purposes. In the spring of 1781, when Washington 
visited Newport to confer with the French commander, the town was 
illuminated on the evening of his arrival, and on the next day a dinner 
was given in his honor at the State House. Before the end of the year, 
however, the Sheriff was directed by the Assembly to take down a shed 
near the house of George Romes and use the material to board up the 
State House windows. The shutters were probably off by 1783, when 
on April 25 the townspeople thronged to the State House to celebrate 
the conclusion of the preliminary treaty of peace. Some time in that 
year a public subscription was raised with which to place a clock, made 
by Benjamin Dudley of Newport, over the balcony. 

It was here that the convention of 1790, to ratify the Constitution 
of the United States and make Rhode Island at last a member of the 
Union assembled. The crowd proved too great for the capacity of the 
building, and the convention accordingly adjourned to the Second Bap- 
tist Church. Another dinner to Washington and his suite marked the 
visit of the Chief Magistrate later in the year. Dinners, indeed, came 
frequently in those days, as they do now, healing the breach of some- 
time enmities, softening the harshness of fortune, and making the flow- 
ing bowl a symbol of the flow of soul and friendliness. On July 2, 
1791, for example, when the first meeting of the Grand Lodge of Masons 
was held at Newport, the session at Trinity Church was followed by an 
" elegant dinner " at half-after two at the Representatives' Hall, with 
fourteen toasts to make the occasion memorable. Again, when Fort 
Adams was named, July 4, 1799, the Newport Mercury tells us that 
the Artillery Company repaired after the exercises to the State House, 
'' where they partook of an excellent repast and dyank a number of 
highly patriotic toasts." 

6 



For the next few years the political history of Rhode Island and 
the United States presented little that called for special public celebra- 
tion. The downfall of the Federalists, the election of Jefferson, the 
strained relations with England and Napoleon, and the fatal policy of 
embargo and non-intercourse, all left their mark, but not in dinners, 
receptions, illuminations or fireworks. Then came the War of 18 12, and 
the memorable victory of a Rhode Island man on Lake Erie. On Nov. 
15, 1813, two months after his defeat of the British, the old State House 
welcomed Commodore Perry. Buildings were again illuminated, and, 
in the language of the Providence Gazette, " the display of the Union 
Flag," and the " ringing of bells .... demonstrated the feeling 
of his countrymen on the happy return of the Hero from .... 
his fields of Glory." Thirteen years later Major Handy, now an old 
man, read from the steps the Declaration of Independence, as he had 
done under such different circumstances fifty years before. 

The year 1843 is memorable in the history of Rhode Island. For 
sixty-eight years Rhode Island, a State of the Union and enjoying a 
republican form of government, had no written Constitution. The old 
charter had lapsed with forcible resistance to Great Britain, and no other 
instrument of fundamental law had as yet taken its place. Now, how- 
ever, though with somewhat strenuous excitement to mark the transi- 
tion, the old order changed, giving place to new. On May 1, the General 
Assembly met at Newport for the last session under the old government. 
The next day, so records the Providence Journal, the members of the 
new Senate and House gathered in front of Townsend's Hall, at half-past 
ten, and with the governor and state officers were escorted by the Rhode 
Island Horse Guards and Newport Artillery to the State House, where 
they met in their separate chambers and organized. The governor for 
the past year presided over the Senate, and the senior members of the 
House from Newport, with the clerks of the old House, directed the 
organization of the House. On the following day. May 3, there was a 
procession from the State House to the Second Baptist Church, where 
exercises in celebration of the establishment of the new government 
under the Constitution were held. Rhode Island had long been a 
republic, but its ruling oligarchy, loudly proclaiming the virtues of the 
illiberal constitution which had just been adopted, must complete its 
work by trying and punishing the man who had sought, as he believed^ 
to lead the commonwealth out of darkness into light. On the last day 
of February, 1844, Thomas W. Dorr was taken from jail in Providence 
and brought to Newport to be tried in the old State House for treason. 
As Mr. Eaton has pointed out, the trial of Dorr in Newport for offenses 
committed in Providence County was " a violation of the usual rule of 
law requiring trial for a criminal oflfens^ in tjia county where the offence 



was committed," although in this instance an impartial jury was more 
likely to be had in Newport County, where the Dorr adherents were 
few ; and the case was unique from the fact that it was " a trial by the 
court of a State under a new constitution, for treason committed against 
a form of government that had now gone out of existence." One hun- 
dred and eighteen jurors were summoned and examined before the 
necessary twelve were obtained. On the 25th of June the trial ended 
with the announcement by Chief Justice Durfee of the sentence of the 
court : " That the said Thomas W. Dorr be imprisoned in the State's 
Prison in Providence, in the County of Providence, for the term of his 
natural life, and there kept at hard labor in separate confinement." 
Ten years passed, and then, by act of the General Assembly, the judg- 
ment of the court was " repealed, reversed, annulled and declared in all 
respects to be as if it had never been rendered." 

The year 1900 saw the last session of the assembly at Newport. 
On June 12 the assembly met to elect a United States senator and in- 
augurate Governor Gregory. On Jan. 1, 1901, the assembly met for the 
first time in the new State House at Providence, and Rhode Island no 
longer had two capitals. 

One can hardly avoid, on an occasion like this, some observations 
on the public life of the State which the building, whose historical sig- 
nificance we commemorate today, typifies. Of the laws enacted during 
the long period which I have briefly surveyed, many have been good* 
some bad, and a fair proportion either unnecessary or ill-considered, 
which is about what must be said of the legislation of every American 
commonwealth during the same period. The decisions of the courts 
have worked substantial justice as between suitors, safe-guarded property 
and labor, and punished wrong-doers. It has been within the power of 
the legislature to recall its judges at any time if it did not like them, and 
within the power of the electors to change their representatives at any 
time for the same reason ; and if either legislature or judiciary have at 
any time gone astray, and their error has passed unrebuked, it is not 
because the people have lacked the power to correct them. We have 
emphasized too much our peculiarities here in Rhode Island, and the 
habit is as bad for a community as for an individual. Let us not forget 
that we have in Rhode Island government by the people, and that our 
government is, as it ought to be in a democracy, pretty much what the 
people want. The rewards of a democracy are measured by its desires ; 
the people wear no fetters save such as they themselves have forged. 

What, then, ought our Rhode Island democracy to want ? If we 
do not like our present government, its forms or its methods, what do 
we wish to put in its place ? Such questions might well be made the 
text for a long discourse, but not for a discourse that would be appro- 

8 



priate here. Yet I take it that the State, in placing a tablet on the old 
State House at Newport, and imposing upon a committee of the Rhode 
Island Historical Society and others the permanent custody of it, de- 
clares its wish that the building and what the building stands for, shall 
be perpetually remembered, and that the attention of the public, even of 
the passer-by, shall be besought. The tablet, like the building, cele- 
brates the past ; and it is the past that counts most in life. History is 
not a science in the sense that we can lay down laws of mathematical 
or biological certainty, or predict the future with accuracy in detail. We 
may not be free to wish what we will, but we are free to will what we 
wish. But the lessons of the past are written large on the pages of 
history, teaching us, if we will but study them, what to imitate if w© 
will have prosperity, what to avoid if we will escape disaster, and how 
to adjust thtj demands of the practical and the ideal so that our day, like 
the days of our fathers, may make for progress. 

I wish, therefore, that the unveiling of this tablet might connect 
itself with a new awakening of interest in history in Newport : that the 
Historical Society whose hospitality we enjoy might be quickened to in- 
creased activity ; that the sites of famous buildings or notable occur- 
ances, and the homes and haunts of prominent men and women, might 
be more numerously marked ; that the history of Rhode Island and of 
the nation might be better and more thoroughly taught in the schools* 
and read and pondered by individuals ; and that lectures, exhibitions, 
and public commemorations might keep in constant memory the annals 
of the past. Particularly do I wish that those among you of foreign 
birth and foreign speech, with an historical heritage very different from 
ours, may be instructed and informed. If you will do these things, you 
will have cooperated in achieving the purpose for which the Commission 
for Marking Historical Sites was created ; but you will have done much 
more than that, in that you will have helped to make sure that govern 
ment of the people, by the people, and for the people does not perish 
from the earth. 



SOCIETY NOTES 



BY-LAWS 

Correction : 

On account of a slight error in 
printing, Section 7 of the By-Laws 
reads incorrectly. It should be as 
follows : 

Sec. 7. At the annual meeting 
the Society shall assess a tax upon 
each sustaining member of ten dol- 
lars, upon each annual member of 
two dollars, and upon each associate 
member of one dollar, which latter 
class shall be entitled to all the priv- 
ileges of the Society except that of 
voting. 

MEETINGS 

The regular quarterly meeting of 
the Society was held November 17th, 
at 3 p. m.. Dr. Terry, Vice President, 
in the chair. The second part of 
the paper written by our late Vice 
President, Hon. R. S. Franklin, on 
Newport Cemeteries was read by the 
Librarian. 

NEW MEMBERS 

The following have been elected 
since the publication of the October 
Bulletin ; 

Annual— Miss Caroline Ogden 
Jones, John H. Greene, Jr., James 
H. Drury, William E. Dennis, Jr. 

Associate— Miss Mary E. Burdick 

MUSEUM AND LIBRARY ACQUISITIONS 

Books added to the library which 
are of particular interest : 

The Rhode Island Signers of the 
Declaration of Independence. Pub- 



Hshed by the Rhode Island Society, 
Sons of the American Revolution, 
1913 

William Tanner, Sr., of South 
Kingstown, R. I., and His Descend- 
ants. By Rev. George C. Tanner, 
D. D., 1910, gift of Dr. Tanner. 

The Seal, the Arms and the Flag 
of Rhode Island, by Howard M. 
Chapin. Published by the Rhode 
Island Historical Society, 1913. 

The Massachusetts Magazine or 
Monthly Museum of Knowledge and 
Rational Entertainment, March, May 
and September, 1793; December, 
1795. May and October, 1796. Gift 
of Mrs. David King. 

New Salem Pictures, by Rev. Haig 
Adadonrian, 1913. Gift of Dr. Ada- 
donrian. 

The Journal of American History, 
from the first volume, 1907, to date. 
Gift of Mrs. Thomas A. Lawton. 

MANUSCRIPTS 

Record books of the Fellowship 
Club, later called the Marine Society, 
beginning 1752. Gift of Rev. Dr. 
Terry. 

Papers relating to Dr. Jackson's 
antiquarian map. From estate of 
Hon. R. S. Franklin. 

Typewritten copies of unpublished 
correspondence of Nicholas Cooke, 
Governor of Rhode Island, Novem- 
ber 1775 to May 1778. Gift of Miss 
Anne Cooke Gushing, Providence, 
R. I. 



10 



OFFICERS 

OF THE 

Newport Historical Society 

Incorporated 1854 
For the year ending May, ipi4 



President, HON. DANIEL B. FEARING 
First Vice-President, REV. RODERICK TERRY, D. D. 

Second Vice-President, MR. FRANK K. STURGIS 

Third Vice-President, MR. ALFRED TUCKERMAN 
Recording Secretary, MR. JOHN P. SANBORN 
Corresponding Secretary, MR. GEORGE H. RICHARDSON 
Treasurer, Mr. HENRY C. STEVENS, Jr. 
Librarian, MISS EDITH MAY TILLEY 
Curator of Coins and Medals, DR. EDWIN P. ROBINSON 
Board of Directors 
THE OFFICERS and 

FOR THREE YEARS 

MRS. THOMAS A. LAWTON MR. HAMILTON B. TOMPKINS 

MRS. FRENCH VANDERBILT MR. GEORGE L. RIVES 

FOR TWO YEARS 

MRS. WILLIAM R. MORGAN COL. C. L. F. ROBINSON 

MR. JONAS BERGNER REV. GEORGE V. DICKEY 

FOR ONE YEAR 

MRS. RICHARD C. DERBY DR. WILLIAM S. SHERMAN 

MRS. HAROLD BROWN MR. JOB PECKHAM 



COMMITTEES 

FINANCE 

REV. GEORGE VERNON DICKEY MRS. THOMAS A. LAWTON 

The Treasurer, ex-ofRcio 

LIBRARY 

MR. GEORGE H. RICHARDSON *HON. ROBERT S. FRANKLIN 

The Librarian, ex-officio 

11 ! 



BUILDINGS 

MR. GEORGE H. RICHARDSON MR. JONAS BERGNER 

DR. E. P. ROBINSON 

PUBLICATION 

REV. RODERICK TERRY MR. HAMILTON B. TOMPKINS 

NOMINATING 

MR. CHARLES M. COTTRELL MRS. CHARLES C. GARDNER 

MR. JOB PECKHAM 

ON LITERARY EXERCISES 

REV. RODERICK TERRY MR. JOHN P. SANBORN 

MR. HAMILTON B. TOMPKINS The President ex-officio 

INCREASE OF MEMBERSHIP 

MRS. THOMAS A. LAWTON MISS ANTOINETTE PECKHAM 

MRS. WM. ROGERS MORGAN MRS. C. L. F. ROBINSON 

MISS MARTHA CODMAN 

AUDITOR 

*HON. ROBERT S. FRANKLIN 
•Deceased 



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